There are two species of corn-bunting—­the red-headed (Emberiza luteola) and the black-headed (E. melanocephala).  In both the lower plumage is bright yellow.

Among the earliest of the birds to forsake the plains of Hindustan are the grey-lag goose and the pintail duck.  These leave Bengal in February, but tarry longer in the cooler parts of the country.  Of the other migratory species many individuals depart in March, but the greater number remain on into April, when they are caught up in the great migratory wave that surges over the country.  The destination of the majority of these migrants is Tibet or Siberia, but a few are satisfied with the cool slopes of the Himalayas as a summer resort in which to busy themselves with the sweet cares of nesting.  Examples of these more local migrants are the grey-headed and the verditer flycatchers, the Indian bush-chat and, to some extent, the paradise flycatcher and the Indian oriole.  The case of the oriole is interesting.  All the Indian orioles (Oriolus kundoo) disappear from the Punjab and the United Provinces in winter.  In the former province no other oriole replaces O. kundoo, but in the United Provinces the black-headed oriole (O. melanocephalus) comes to take the place of the other from October to March.  When this last returns to the United Provinces in March the greater number of melanocephalus individuals go east, a few only remaining in the sub-Himalayan tracts of the province.

The Indian oriole is not the only species which finds the climate of the United Provinces too severe for it in winter; the koel and the paradise flycatcher likewise desert us in the coldest months.  From the less temperate Punjab several species migrate in October which manage to maintain themselves in the United Provinces throughout the year:  these are the purple sunbird, the little green and the blue-tailed bee-eaters, and the yellow-throated sparrow.  The return of these and the other migrant species to the Punjab in March is as marked a phenomenon as is the arrival of the swallow and the cuckoo in England in spring.

The behaviour of the king-crows shows the marked effect a comparatively small difference of temperature may exert on the habits of some birds.  In the United Provinces the king-crows appear to be as numerous in winter as in summer:  in the Punjab they are very plentiful in summer, but rare in the cold weather; while not a single king-crow winters in the N.-W.  Frontier Province.

Of the birds of which the nests were described in January and February the Pallas’s fishing eagles have sent their nestlings into the world to fend for themselves.

In the case of the following birds the breeding season is fast drawing to its close:—­the dusky horned-owl, the white-backed vulture, Bonelli’s eagle, the tawny eagle, the brown fish-owl, the rock horned-owl, the raven, the amadavat and the white-throated munia.